Tuesday, March 03, 2015, 12:50 p.m.

Evacuation came too late for many on sinking ferry

By The Associated Press

This article was published April 17, 2014 at 11:07 a.m.

PHOTO BY AP/AHN YOUNG-JOON

South Korean Coast Guard officers search for missing passengers aboard a sunken ferry in the waters off the southern coast near Jindo, South Korea, on Thursday, April 17, 2014. An immediate evacuation order was not issued for the ferry, likely with scores of people trapped inside, because officers on the bridge were trying to stabilize the vessel after it started to list amid confusion and chaos, a crew member said Thursday.

MOKPO, South Korea — An immediate evacuation order was not issued for the ferry that sank off South Korea's southern coast, likely with scores of people trapped inside, because officers on the bridge were trying to stabilize the vessel after it started to list amid confusion and chaos, a crew member said Thursday.

Meanwhile, the coast guard said it was investigating whether the ferry's captain was one of the first ones off the sinking ship.

The first instructions from the captain were for the passengers to put on life jackets and stay put, and it was not until about 30 minutes later that he ordered an evacuation, Oh Yong-seok, a 58-year-old crew member, said. But, Oh said, he wasn't sure if the captain's order, given to crew members, was actually relayed to passengers on the public address system.

Several survivors also said they never heard any evacuation order.

Twenty people, including a female crew member, at least five students and two teachers, were confirmed dead by coast guard officials Thursday night. But the toll was expected to jump amid fears that more than 270 missing passengers, many high school students, were dead. Coast guard officials put the number of survivors Thursday at 179.